1. Field of Invention
The present invention is geared toward the field of watermarking scanned images, and in particular, is geared toward the definition of new printable symbols for encoding a watermark message.
2. Description of Related Art
Visible watermarking is the science of overlaying messages comprised of bit-encoded, character strings onto a user-provided image (i.e. an input image) prior to printing the input image. The resultant, printed image is a watermarked image, and it is said to have been watermarked with a secret, or hidden, watermark message. The principle motivation behind such encoding is that when properly encoded, the watermark message can be extracted from a scan of the previously-printed, watermarked image.
Visible watermarking schemes can be useful in many scenarios, such as having a user ID encoded onto documents while printing from a network printer, having the date and time of printing inconspicuously placed on a printed document, etc.
Although watermark messages may be incorporated as textual messages overlaid on an output image, it is preferred that the watermark message not be readily discernable by a casual viewer of the output image. That is, it is typically preferred that the watermark message not be printed using text characters, which can be freely read since such a message is likely to become a distraction to a casual viewer; moving the casual view's attention away from the output image itself. It is therefore customary to first encode the watermark message using an encoding scheme that is not readily discernable by a casual viewer, and then to overlay the encoded message on the output image. Preferably, the encoded message should be innocuous to the casual viewer and not divert attention from the main subject matter of the output image.
One typical method of encoding a message is to use the standard ASCII code, which is known in the art to provide a distinct eight-bit, binary code per text character. In this way, the ASCII encoded message may be printed as a series of 0's and 1's overlaid on the output image, and is not easily discernable by a casual viewer. However, it is typically not an optimal solution to clutter an output image with a series of 0's and 1's detectable by the human eye.
One approach to hiding the encoded message is to encode the watermark message into text characters that may already be a part of the output image. In this approach, an existing text character within the output image is divided into an upper region and a lower region, and relative darkness levels of the two regions are modulated to inscribe the encoded watermark message. For example, the upper region of a text character may be made darker than its lower region to represent a logic-0. Alternatively, the lower region of a text character may be made darker than its upper region to represent a logic-1. This approach succeeds in effectively hiding the watermark message from a casual reader of the output document, but to some extent, it may be dependent upon the quality of scanning and printing equipment used to process the watermarked output image to successfully inscribe the watermarked message and to successfully extract the watermarked message after multiple scan-and-print cycles.